Predict the Wizards Record '16-'17 season

[queridiculo]

We have seen this GM consistently make the same type of bad moves for years on end.

Well, listening to our owner it's simply bad luck, so keep your chin up, we'll get lucky eventually.

[payitforward]

We're 3-3 at home, and 0-5 on the road. Projects to 20.5 wins.

Our 6 home games have been against the Raptors, Hawks, Rockets, Celtics, Cavs & Knicks. Total record of those teams vs. the rest of the league is 40-22. So a pretty tough schedule at home so far.

Our 5 road games have been against the Hawks, Orlando, Philly, Chicago & Memphis. Total record of those teams vs. the rest of the league is 26-27. So an easier schedule on the road than at home so far.

Overall (evening out for 1 fewer road game), our opponents so far have gone 6 - 4.6 against the rest of the league. That's 1.13 times an average record.

So, things don't look quite as bad as 20.5 wins might suggest; we need to multiply that by 1.13 to account for the strength of our schedule so far.

All that done, we project to 23 wins based on our record so far.

[Dat2U]

We're 3-3 at home, and 0-5 on the road. Projects to 20.5 wins.

Our 6 home games have been against the Raptors, Hawks, Rockets, Celtics, Cavs & Knicks. Total record of those teams vs. the rest of the league is 40-22. So a pretty tough schedule at home so far.

Our 5 road games have been against the Hawks, Orlando, Philly, Chicago & Memphis. Total record of those teams vs. the rest of the league is 26-27. So an easier schedule on the road than at home so far.

Overall (evening out for 1 fewer road game), our opponents so far have gone 6 - 4.6 against the rest of the league. That's 1.13 times an average record.

So, things don't look quite as bad as 20.5 wins might suggest; we need to multiply that by 1.13 to account for the strength of our schedule so far.

All that done, we project to 23 wins based on our record so far.

Based on what I've seen, I think 35-37 wins is likely. I still think Wall will end up having the best season of his career. Obviously Otto will too. If Beal plays like he did last night, that will help too. The bench will be a problem though even when Mahinmi gets back.

I also fully expect EG to mortgage a protected pick for some middle of the road vet in another futile effort to make a run for the 8th seed.

[dckingsfan]

Fivethirtyeight has us at 34-48 right now.

[Hidden Eye]

It's ok Wizards are a playoff team cause there will be "Jolts" like EG said

[closg00]

FINAL

Ties determined by ECF Standings

Wins
52 - stevemcqueen1
50 - Halcyon
49 - bsilver
48 - Wizardspride
47 - krii
46 - CaPtaiN eYeSaNo, Joe_Wiz
45 - nuposse04, Slartibartfast, phil21, Ruzious
44 - Hidden Eye, fishercob, Error Afflalo, dobrojim, FreeBalling
43 - Dark Faze, TGW, Illmatic12, JAR69, CntOutSmrtCrazy, Earth2Ted, DCZards, Kanyewest, pineappleheadindc
42.5 - Vegas Bookmakers, oddsshark.com
42 - Sluggerface, TheBabyMaker, Dat2U, FAH1223, DANNYLANDOVER, m1chal,Nigel Tufnel, dandridge 10, montestewart, McFilthy, sfam
41 - tontoz, waitingfornextyear.com, ESPN, nate33
40 - gesa2, queridiculo, sashae, WizBiz, dckingsfan
39 - PIF, J-Ves, closg00
38 - MJG, AFM, fivethirtyeight.com, KevinFCheng, verbal8
37 - The Fax, Benjammin, WizTom
36 - CCJ
35 - long suffrin' boulez fan
34 - BigA
33 - WallToWall

Eastern Conference Standings

3rd - bsilver, stevemcqueen1
4th - krii, Joe_Wiz, pineappleheadindc
5th - fishercob, phil21, DCZards, Error Afflalo
6th - nuposse04, Dark Faze, Hidden Eye, Vegas Bookmakers, Illmatic12, Dat2U, FAH1223, fivethirtyeight.com, Kanyewest, FreeBalling
7th - Nigel Tufnel, JAR69, montestewart, sfam
8th - TheBabyMaker, DANNYLANDOVER, m1chal, dandridge 10, Sports Illustrated, Earth2Ted, McFilthy, dobrojim, WizBiz, dckingsfan
9th - tontoz, gesa2, queridiculo, sashae, closg00
10th - PIF, CCJ, AFM, J-Ves, KevinFCheng, The Fax, Benjammin, verbal8,WizTom
11th - long suffrin' boulez fan, BigA
12th - cbssports.com

*Bump* the under 40 group looking good.

[tontoz]

They will probably make a late season push when other teams are tanking or have given up.

[payitforward]

We began the season by going 2-8 in our first 10 games. Not so good. In the 12 games since then, we've gone 7-5 -- much better, obviously! But, there are several reasons to check one's optimism.

1. The 7 teams we beat in that stretch have a combined record against the rest of the league of 64-91. OTOH, our 5 losses were to teams w/ a combined 46-46 record vs. the rest of the league.

2. Of those 12 games 8 were at home; we went 5-3 in those games, and 2-2 on the road (w/ the wins coming @ Orlando & Brooklyn).

3. In all, we've played 13 games at home and 9 on the road. I.e. our record is a little misleading.

We have 10 games left in December, of which 6 are at home & 4 on the road. In fact, unbelievably to me, between now and the end of February, we play 20 games at home as against only 16 on the road. At that point, we'll have played 33 at home and only 25 on the road!

That means March & April, with 8 games at home & 16 away, will be absolute killer months for the Wizards. Especially given the minutes we play our starters. If Oubre continues to show that he can produce in big minutes, that will help. & Mahinmi better be back soon, & he better be effective right away as well. Even with that, it's hard to imagine us post a .500 record for those two months.

Overall -- & this is just a thought experiment, no more, certainly not a prediction -- if we were to win all our home games for the rest of the season and lose all our road games, our record would be 37-45.

Obviously, it wouldn't happen just that way -- but somewhere just South or North of 37 wins is starting to look like the right range for us this year.

[Meliorus]

We began the season by going 2-8 in our first 10 games. Not so good. In the 12 games since then, we've gone 7-5 -- much better, obviously! But, there are several reasons to check one's optimism.

1. The 7 teams we beat in that stretch have a combined record against the rest of the league of 64-91. OTOH, our 5 losses were to teams w/ a combined 46-46 record vs. the rest of the league.

2. Of those 12 games 8 were at home; we went 5-3 in those games, and 2-2 on the road (w/ the wins coming @ Orlando & Brooklyn).

3. In all, we've played 13 games at home and 9 on the road. I.e. our record is a little misleading.

We have 10 games left in December, of which 6 are at home & 4 on the road. In fact, unbelievably to me, between now and the end of February, we play 20 games at home as against only 16 on the road. At that point, we'll have played 33 at home and only 25 on the road!

That means March & April, with 8 games at home & 16 away, will be absolute killer months for the Wizards. Especially given the minutes we play our starters. If Oubre continues to show that he can produce in big minutes, that will help. & Mahinmi better be back soon, & he better be effective right away as well. Even with that, it's hard to imagine us post a .500 record for those two months.

Overall -- & this is just a thought experiment, no more, certainly not a prediction -- if we were to win all our home games for the rest of the season and lose all our road games, our record would be 37-45.

Obviously, it wouldn't happen just that way -- but somewhere just South or North of 37 wins is starting to look like the right range for us this year.

Why should we be scared about road games? The Wizards were 22-19 on the road and 22-19 at home in 2013-2014. The Wizards were 19-22 on the road last season. The one outlier in the Wall-Beal-Otto-Gortat era was a 17-24 road record in 2014-2015.

I think we should worry more about who we're playing than whether it's a road game or not. We don't have much of a home-court advantage anyways.

[payitforward]

We began the season by going 2-8 in our first 10 games. Not so good. In the 12 games since then, we've gone 7-5 -- much better, obviously! But, there are several reasons to check one's optimism.

1. The 7 teams we beat in that stretch have a combined record against the rest of the league of 64-91. OTOH, our 5 losses were to teams w/ a combined 46-46 record vs. the rest of the league.

2. Of those 12 games 8 were at home; we went 5-3 in those games, and 2-2 on the road (w/ the wins coming @ Orlando & Brooklyn).

3. In all, we've played 13 games at home and 9 on the road. I.e. our record is a little misleading.

We have 10 games left in December, of which 6 are at home & 4 on the road. In fact, unbelievably to me, between now and the end of February, we play 20 games at home as against only 16 on the road. At that point, we'll have played 33 at home and only 25 on the road!

That means March & April, with 8 games at home & 16 away, will be absolute killer months for the Wizards. Especially given the minutes we play our starters. If Oubre continues to show that he can produce in big minutes, that will help. & Mahinmi better be back soon, & he better be effective right away as well. Even with that, it's hard to imagine us post a .500 record for those two months.

Overall -- & this is just a thought experiment, no more, certainly not a prediction -- if we were to win all our home games for the rest of the season and lose all our road games, our record would be 37-45.

Obviously, it wouldn't happen just that way -- but somewhere just South or North of 37 wins is starting to look like the right range for us this year.

Why should we be scared about road games? The Wizards were 22-19 on the road and 22-19 at home in 2013-2014. The Wizards were 19-22 on the road last season. The one outlier in the Wall-Beal-Otto-Gortat era was a 17-24 road record in 2014-2015.

I think we should worry more about who we're playing than whether it's a road game or not. We don't have much of a home-court advantage anyways.

I could be wrong, but I don't think we get to plug in our road record from three years ago and say "use that please instead of this year." And this year we are 2-7 on the road so far.

Still, you are probably right. Having only 8 home games in all of March and April as against 16 road games is nothing to worry about. After all, in 2013-14 we went 22-19 on the road. H&ll, to reach that mark this year, all we have to do is go 20-12 in our remaining away games, right? Piece of cake.

[closg00]

Ted/Ernie would love to finish in the high 30s, zero pressure for Ted to fire Ernie.

[The Consiglieri]

We began the season by going 2-8 in our first 10 games. Not so good. In the 12 games since then, we've gone 7-5 -- much better, obviously! But, there are several reasons to check one's optimism.

1. The 7 teams we beat in that stretch have a combined record against the rest of the league of 64-91. OTOH, our 5 losses were to teams w/ a combined 46-46 record vs. the rest of the league.

2. Of those 12 games 8 were at home; we went 5-3 in those games, and 2-2 on the road (w/ the wins coming @ Orlando & Brooklyn).

3. In all, we've played 13 games at home and 9 on the road. I.e. our record is a little misleading.

We have 10 games left in December, of which 6 are at home & 4 on the road. In fact, unbelievably to me, between now and the end of February, we play 20 games at home as against only 16 on the road. At that point, we'll have played 33 at home and only 25 on the road!

That means March & April, with 8 games at home & 16 away, will be absolute killer months for the Wizards. Especially given the minutes we play our starters. If Oubre continues to show that he can produce in big minutes, that will help. & Mahinmi better be back soon, & he better be effective right away as well. Even with that, it's hard to imagine us post a .500 record for those two months.

Overall -- & this is just a thought experiment, no more, certainly not a prediction -- if we were to win all our home games for the rest of the season and lose all our road games, our record would be 37-45.

Obviously, it wouldn't happen just that way -- but somewhere just South or North of 37 wins is starting to look like the right range for us this year.

It's funny a couple of weeks ago I did a very unscientific analysis of our schedule, trying to make sure I noted the back2back games, and the home versus road issues. The worst case scenario was us probably going about 25-57 barring catastrophic injury, and the best I saw was around 37-45 oddly enough. The sweet spot seemed to be about 30-35 wins barring injury. I suspect that is what will happen, one of the key reasons being, the bench is so freaking god awful that any serious injury to virtually anyone at all and we'll go into a tail spin rendering any playoff hopes as absurd at best.

I don't see any chance at the playoffs. The problem I have is if we end up in that same dreaded spot we did so often back in the day in 1992, and 1993, and 1994, and 1999, and 2002 and 2003 and 2009, and 2011, always falling, never moving up, always a slot or two or 3 out of reach of exactly what we needed. When I did research on what those records typically equaled it was pretty depressing. 25 wins typically slots you in around 4-6, 30-35 wins usually slots you in to 6-12. The higher the better of course. My guess is we end up landing around the 6-9 slot. Still it's a damn good draft, maybe we get lucky. I'm not buying the win streak as meaningful, although I don't think I'm far from you in that I think we're probably better than that god awful start, but not as good as the recover either. We're a bit of a sub .500 team, not substantially below it, but definitely below it.

[BigA]

I think they have a shot to sneak into the playoffs at a couple games above .500 if everything breaks right: the starters continue to play well with no major injuries, Mahinmi comes back soon and stays healthy, Oubre continues to develop into a reliable rotation player, they get better back-up PG play from somewhere, etc.

It's more likely that not all of those things happen. Given the minutes the starters will need to play just to beat bad teams, it will be a miracle if they don't have one or more significant injuries.

As PIF points out, the schedule is laid out in such a way that the Wizards really need to continue their improved play right now and over the next couple months since March and April will be tough.

I expect them to be around .500 near the deadline, and vulnerable to making a desperation move that involves trading the pick to get a marginal upgrade to the bench and dump one of the guys they just signed last summer. Ted and Ernie will say that they are following The Plan, then they end up missing the playoffs with no pick in a strong draft. IOW, deja vu all over again.

[dckingsfan]

I still think that those two losses to Orlando and Philly will loom large later. We would be 11-11 and the team psychologically would be in much better shape right now.

[tontoz]

The playoff race is going to be crazy. We are in 11th place now but only 2.5 games from 3rd.

[dckingsfan]

With 30 games in the books, your Washington Wizards sport a 14W, 16L record good for a .467 winning percentage and on pace to win 38 games. fivethirtyeight currently has them with a 48% chance of making the playoffs.

MJG, AFM, fivethirtyeight.com, KevinFCheng and verbal8 are currently the leaders.

[nate33]

1 game separates the 6th seed from the 12th seed in the East. We are currently 0.5 games behind the 6th place team.

[AFM]

Chance of none of our starters missing 15 games due to injury?

[dckingsfan]

Chance of none of our starters missing 15 games due to injury?

100%

Plus, we have that very deep bench...

[montestewart]

Chance of none of our starters missing 15 games due to injury?

100%

Plus, we have that very deep bench...

Deep like a yawning chasm, a bottomless pit, an immeasurable abyss. Where will it end?